1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to high availability (HA) management, such as utilizing a Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (Serial Attached SCSI or SAS) technique to implement the HA management of a storage system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for managing a storage system by utilizing a hybrid management path, and an associated apparatus thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Network services are necessary features of modern life. Problems such as elopement failures, operation errors or system breakdowns may cause the server to malfunction, which may interrupt the service. This increases the cost involved in network services.
A high availability (HA) scheme may prevent some types of network services from being interrupted, but additional problems may be introduced. In an example, two servers in the HA scheme may need a network to monitor each other. When the network is interrupted or unstable, errors may occur during monitoring operations, disrupting normal function of the HA scheme. In another example, in order to make the two servers of the HA scheme monitor each other, an additional server may be required for performing the monitoring operations, which increases the related cost. If one of the two servers breaks down and is unable to control a corresponding control circuit in an enclosure thereof, some part of the enclosure may lose the function of automatic temperature adjustment, which raises the possibility of the storage device in the enclosure breaking down. A related art solution applies an additional fan sensor and an additional fan controller, but this configuration also raises the cost.
It can be seen from the above that related art solutions cannot solve the existing problems without introducing side effects. Hence, there is a need for a novel method and an associated scheme which can properly solve the existing problems with only minimal side effects.